Established in 2006, American Indians in Children's Literature (AICL) provides critical perspectives and analysis of indigenous peoples in children's and young adult books, the school curriculum, popular culture, and society. Scroll down for links to book reviews, Native media, and more.

For some time, I've toyed with the idea of making a video in which I talk about children's books. This morning I decided to do it. Below is my video. You'll see right away that its too dark, which makes it fuzzy. It is dark because too much light in front of me creates glare on my eyeglasses that, in effect, obscures my eyes. I'll try other locations and see if I can get the lighting just right. For now...

To reiterate in text what I said in the video... Joseph Bruchac's The Heart of a Chief is a story in which the author (Bruchac) has created characters who talk about another story. In this case, Chris, the middle-school boy who is the main character, talks about a highly problematic---yet widely acclaimed---work of historical fiction called The Sign of the Beaver.

Look over to the right side of this page and scroll down to the bottom. See the section called "Labels"? In that section you'll find "Sign of the Beaver." Click on it and you'll see several posts about the book.

There are other examples of metafiction. In his novel, Indian Killer, Sherman Alexie created Marie, a character who challenges her professor for using The Education of Little Tree in a course about American Indian Literature. Indian Killer is not a book meant for children. Some young adults would be fine with the content; others would not.

Another good example is Thomas King's A Coyote Columbus Story. The fiction King pokes at? That one that goes "In 1492, Christopher Columbus discovered America..."

First Peoples listed AICL as one of the Top Five Native Blogs and Podcast to follow. School Library Journal's Elizabeth Burns featured AICL as her Blog of the Day on July 2, 2007, and in 2007, the ALA's Association for Library Service to Children invited Debbie to write a blog post for their site.

American Indian? Or, Native American? There is no agreement among Native peoples. Both are used. It is best to be specific. Example: Instead of "Debbie Reese, a Native American," say "Debbie Reese, a Nambe Pueblo Indian woman."